Our readers from across the county give their weekly take on the biggest issues impacting Kent and beyond.

Some letters refer to past correspondence, which can be found by clicking here. Join the debate by emailing letters@thekmgroup.co.uk

Stop supply of boats to end crossings

I see from news reports that yet another person, perhaps more, have been lost whilst trying to cross the Channel in an inflatable.

As the weather changes and the likelihood of calmer seas approaches, there is still a real danger of drowning and (surprisingly at this time of year) hypothermia to anyone in the water if attempting to cross the Channel in an inflatable dinghy.

The answer seems to me quite obvious; the supply chain of the inflatables, lifejackets and outboards needs to be broken either by French or British authorities.

These craft are heavy and bulky until inflated. They are being ordered probably online and delivered to some sort of reception facility.

There must be huge lorries full of inflatables, lifejackets and outboards openly running around the French countryside on route. The whole journey from supplier to French channel ports will involve transport, warehouses, manpower, forklift trucks, mechanically or electrically driven air compressors and then further transport to points of departure.

The designated occupants of the inflatable perhaps also need to be transported to their pre-arranged departure point. Surely, with a bit of imagination and diligence from government authorities, French or British, it would not be difficult to uncover the supply chain and break it.

It must be recognised that there may be many other deaths occurring in the water that we may never know about.

Rather than pay millions to French authorities for their intervention, why doesn’t our government use technology and intelligence resources to locate the source of, and then break the dinghy and outboard supply chains before yet more lives are lost?

This assuming, of course, that our government, of whatever colour, is really serious in its intention to "Stop the Boats" and the deaths?

Mr T. A. Todd

Labour faces challenge to stop Reform

With Reform UK making considerable gains in the council elections, securing two mayors and overturning a Labour majority of almost 15,000 in a by-election in Runcorn, the party has overnight become a decisive challenger to the mainstream parties.

They've certainly changed the complexion of the political landscape and given the government cause to be worried at the upsurge of support in Farage's party.

Although the next election is some way off, Labour will have to work that much harder to produce results that would curry favour with the electorate and which would place them in a better position to take on Reform, so preventing them from forming the next government.

Michael Smith

Immigration more complex than just slogans

It’s clear from recent letters that immigration and electoral reform have become lightning rods for public anger, and Reform UK is all too happy to harness that discontent, offering easy answers to complex problems.

However, to move beyond recycled outrage, we need to distinguish between genuine concerns, simplistic slogans, and cult-like devotion.

There is no doubt that successive governments failed to deliver on promises on immigration. Conservative-led administrations since 2010 made repeated commitments to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands”, pledges that were not only unmet but dramatically reversed.

This failure has been exploited by political opportunists, particularly in communities where pressure on housing and services is felt sharpest. However, it's also important to acknowledge that much of this migration includes key workers, students and care sector staff.

In many countries today, anti-immigration rhetoric is promoted as a “reasonable concern” of the working class but is designed to divide the people with the least power in society. Anti-immigration sentiment is fundamentally anti-working class because it divides people along national and racial lines, rather than uniting them against their true source of exploitation.

The soft nationalism that cloaks itself in concern for “community cohesion,” “cultural values,” or “British jobs” are narratives that rely on the false assumption that scarcity is natural and that migrants, not capitalism, are to blame for inequality. In truth, it is austerity, wage suppression, privatisation, and tax avoidance that degrade public services, not immigration. The state always has money for war, corporate subsidies, and the monarchy, but never for housing or healthcare. That is not an immigrant problem. That is a class problem.

The Channel crossings, often used as a symbol of "uncontrolled" immigration, make up a relatively small fraction of total arrivals. The focus on these crossings is an act of political theatre that seeks to obscure the more complex drivers of migration: global conflict, labour shortages and legal routes offered by UK policy itself.

If Reform UK or any other party is to be taken seriously on this issue, they must go beyond slogans and offer credible, lawful, and economically viable immigration reform, not just rhetoric that plays on fear or frustration felt in the wake of the catastrophic failure of neoliberalism’s pledge to make us wealthier.

Dr Hayden McDonald

Government needs common sense

I am 86 years old and don't hold any academic qualifications but I do consider I have good common sense.

We live on an island; that means we are surrounded by water and cannot extend our land mass. The population is growing at an alarming rate despite the birth rate slowing down.

In all public services, we are short of staff and day-to-day life is becoming difficult because of that.

The population has grown because of immigration and a lot of these immigrants are illegal.

We have a three-mile limit that surrounds this island, so why does our Royal Navy not stop them and turn them around and send them back to the safe country that they have come from? If this was carried out through the summer it would stop the gangs in France operating. It would show we have a Royal Navy and show we have some form of defence.

Stop the importation and manufacture of all new cars and use up the many, many thousands of cars parked on the road and on second hand forecourts. Also, if the government feels that the electric cars are the answer, form a department to design a much safer car.

Stop building solar farms and ensure that all new buildings have solar panels included in their design. Also, stop building all three-bedroom houses on farm land and build a small number of affordable dwellings in each community.

So come on, all you readers who have common sense and get together to sort out this last lot in central and local government as they are out of touch with us on the ground, some of whom voted them in.

Richard Mummery

Rejoining EU by the back door

In 2016, over 17 million people decided in favour of leaving the European Union but ever since, many politicians have chewed the cud and never accepted the democratic vote of the people.

They have contested it ever since and done everything they possibly can to overturn that democratic decision.

Now we see Keir Starmer is taking us for fools by giving away our fishing grounds and who knows what else in order to force our country back into the European Union via the back door, with tons of our money going back into their coffers, no doubt.

Did anyone know about this? Was it in Labour’s election manifesto, or was it decided to hold another referendum? No wonder the Labour front bench sit there with their smug looks on their faces.

Sid Anning

Shameful for council to remove Ukraine flag

So, one of the first actions of the ruling Reform Group at County Hall is to state their intention to remove the Ukrainian flag from the council chamber.

It is no good the new county council leader, Mrs Kemkaran of Reform, saying the Ukrainian flag is merely a "distraction".

This is straight out of the Trumpian playbook of isolationism from the world. She obviously does not see that the supremely brave and inspiring Ukrainian people are in the front line and in effect fighting for the Western democracies against the power crazy and evil Putin.

Flying a flag is a moral and visual support for Ukraine, it keeps their predicament in the front of our minds and costs absolutely nothing.

As a country we have been one of the most stalwart supporters of Ukraine and this is a shameful act.

Geordie Hayward

Disgraceful displays of anti-semitism

The British have rightly always treated the Eurovision Song Contest as a source for humour, the greatest exponent of which was Terry Wogan, whose comments pricked the whole vast balloon of pretentiousness.

However the competition has always contained sinister political undercurrents, and never more so than this year, when the ingrained anti-semitism of the liberal elites treated the Israeli entry, sung by a women who nearly died in the massacre of innocents perpetrated by the terrorists of Hamas, was subjected to endless protests, and, despite the obvious support of a majority of the public vote, was prevented from winning by the so-called experts.

It is despicable that the victims of this unprovoked attack by barbarians, who raped, kidnapped and murdered unarmed civilians, including babies, should be cast as the villains by so many members of the chattering classes of the West, including a large part of the media, particularly the BBC.

How many other nations would be expected to accept such an outrage without seeking to ensure that it will never happen again. Would we?

Colin Bullen

How to teach pupils ‘grit’?

The government wants children to be taught "grit" in schools.

One has to wonder how teachers could tackle that as a subject; here are few examples for starters:

"No, you do not need a bottle of water on or at your desk, you will not dehydrate if you fail to drink every few minutes."

"No, you should have gone to the toilet during break time."

"If you haven't done your homework you're in detention, that's it, no arguments - any argument you'll get two detentions."

"I don't care and I don't believe your dog/cat/brother ate/tore up/lost your book, your parents are paying for a new one."

"If you're not going to work in lessons, you can stand in the corner/corridor all day."

"Don't bother whinging to your parents, I don't care, I'm your teacher, not them, and I might just have to share some hard truths about you with them."

"You're all going to learn Rudyard Kipling's IF off by heart because that is the best preparation you will ever have for life..."

Bob Britnell

Woeful sentences for domestic murders

Whenever I see letters about capital punishment such as those from Bob Readman and Dr Hayden McDonald, it reminds me of two things.

I recall seeing the former Labour MP, the late Roy Hattersley on Question Time and this subject came up and the reason he gave for remaining opposed to the restoration of execution was because most people kill somebody they know.

At the time it seemed to me to be a spurious reason for being opposed, but a couple of years later my wife and I were at a posh black tie do at the Café Royale in London and after the meal the MC stood up and asked all of us who were there with spouses or partners to turn and face each other. Like all the other couples my wife and I duly obliged and then the MC said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you are now looking into the eyes of the person most likely to kill you!’

Therein lies the dilemma, because it is a fact that since abolition of the death penalty back in the late sixties, murders have increased and by far the great majority of them could be termed ‘domestic murders’ and we are now at the point of an average of two women a week being killed at the hands of men they know.

It has become apparent that the legal profession would much prefer it if the fixed penalty of life imprisonment for murder did not exist as their idea of a ‘life’ sentence can vary greatly, from extraordinarily high to pathetically low and it’s the domestic murders that tend to fall into that latter category.

Clearly, if you’re killed by someone you knew, your life is cheap.

I am now 75 and despite the fact there is no sign of the number of homicides doing anything but increasing, I cannot see any prospect of the return of any form of execution in my lifetime.

But I believe that at some time in the future the number of people being given a whole of life term, or a sentence of such duration that they will almost certainly die in prison, will have to be addressed.

C. Aichgy